The house was quiet for once. No one said a word, and now one moved.
Rhea sat in the middle of the sofa, her head held low and her face filled with shame and resentment.
However, that resentment was not aimed at the intruders or her mother, who had knocked her out with a single slap. She was feeling resentment toward herself.
Keira simply stood next to the door, looking through the window right next to her and staring at the forest in the distance.
Silas could almost feel the anger resonating from her body in the form of mana fluctuations. The fire element inside the mana around her was reacting to the anger in waves, yet Keira was wise enough to bite her tongue and not say anything.
However, the same could not be said for Lochras.
“How could you leave our children here alone? Are you stupid?! Does Diveen need to check up on you to make sure your healthy enough to take care of our children?” Lochras asked, his fist clenched tightly as he slowly turned away.
His rage was a lot stronger than Keira’s, but that was to be expected.
Silas could see it fluctuate off him in the form of toki, but instead of being the kind of toki that would destroy and enhance, it fluctuated from his body like a calm and constant breeze.
“Syra’s fine. She had a few burns on her hands from… Well, that.” Diveen pointed at the metal rod sticking out of the man’s eye socket.
“I would worry about her mental state though. No child should have to see this. You’re lucky Silas is too young to remember any of this.” Diveen sighed.
‘Nope… Actually, I remember it quite vividly. You never forget your first kill. Mhm, Mhm…’ Silas nodded in a way that made it seem like he was agreeing with himself.
Despite being berated and shouted at, Rhea didn’t say a single word. She kept her head low and shed silent tears. Silas could see that she was blaming herself, but he blamed her too.
If she wasn’t so careless, this situation would have never happened, and if he hadn’t been born into the body of Silas Skylark, his sister would have most likely died or been taken as a slave.
Silas frowned a little.
‘I should have made their deaths a little more painful.’ He thought to himself.
The rest of the day was quite uneventful.
The monster horde attacking the town of Uladia was quickly eliminated or dispersed. Without their alpha, they just became a group of uncoordinated monsters waiting to be killed.
On the other hand, Syra was quickly healed up, but she didn’t wake up for another three days.
Diveen kept telling them she was fine, yet they all worried no matter what the nun said.
They had cleaned up the house and made sure that it was spotless so Syra wouldn’t have to relive that day again, but only Silas knew that she would most likely be fine.
She had more resolve than most of the adults he knew in his previous life. Seeing a little blood wouldn’t shake her… Hell, he did all the killing, so she probably wouldn’t be shaken either way.
After another day passed, and after the entire family slept in the same room as Syra one last time, she finally woke up.
“Mommy? Daddy?” Syra wiped her eyes before flinching and looking at her hands.
Yet when she looked at them, she didn’t see the burn marks she was expecting to see.
“Oh baby. You’re awake?” Rhea sighed in relief, rubbing her eyes after having just been woken up by her daughter.
Rhea slowly took Syra into a deep and warm embrace while smiling.
“W-What happened… There were those big p-people, and they said they’ll hurt us, and then I took Silas to the corner of the room to protect him, and then that man punched the air and I got knocked out.” She recounted the story with tears in her eyes.
“I’m proud of you baby…” Lochras hugged his daughter and with a proud smile on his face.j
He was at the pristine-onyx core, and for some reason, he felt more refreshed than ever before, so he did the only thing he could. Cultivate!
He was felt like he was pretty close to breaking through, but that was something for him to do whenever he was taking a bath, and his parents weren’t looking.
After concluding that Syra couldn’t remember what she had done, the family unanimously decided that the best course of action was to go to the town adventurer guild and test out Syra’s elemental affinity grade.
Of course, Silas had no idea what that was, and he hadn’t really taken it into account when he was covering up the entire situation.
***
“…” The woman doing the affinity test stared at the wooden tablet with widened eyes and a jaw that almost hit the floor.
[ S-Grade Wind Affinity ]
“…”
“…”
“…”
‘Oh thank god.’ Silas sighed in relief while the rest simply looked at the runic tablet with four individually colored crystals in each corner.
However, unlike Silas, who was relieved by what he saw, everyone else seemed to have weird expressions on their faces.
“I expected B or maybe even A if we were lucky, but S?” Silas saw Keira flabbergasted for the very first time since the day he was born. She always only showed unpleasant emotions, so it felt a little weird seeing her so shocked.
“I can’t believe it…” Lochras felt like dropping to his knees. He could already imagine how many suitors might come for his sweet little daughter in the future. An S-rank affinity is something that is passed down bloodlines, so who wouldn’t want such a thing?
“Those damn nobles are going to come for my little girl.” Lochras muttered under his breath as his soul left his body, leaving him in a pale zombie-like state where he muttered the last thing he thought of before his mind shut down.
‘I think we broke him.’ Silas looked at his father with an ounce of pity.
“My baby is a genius!” Rhea shouted with the utmost excitement, quickly placing Silas into Keira’s embrace and running to her daughter to lift her into the air.
“Wow… This is the first time I’ve ever seen anyone get an S-rank affinity. Its truly an amazing feat, thank you for allowing me to witness it.” The woman holding the tablet bowed slightly with her hand placed over her heart.
“Mommy… What’s a genius?” Syra asked, slowly getting dizzy from being spun around by her mother.
“A genius is someone destined to be the greatest!” Rhea placed her daughter on the ground and looked up with determination and resolve on her expression.
“Why are you making that face?” Syra asked innocently while gradually regaining her balance.
“You’ll understand when you’re older.” Rhea patted her daughter on the head before wrapping her in another warm embrace. However, Rhea’s face remained stoic this time, flickering with guilt every time she breathed out.
And that’s when Keira looked at Silas.
“Shouldn’t we see if Silas has an affinity towards any of the elements? I remember Syra was about his age when we checked out her affinities.” Keira suggested.
“That’s a great idea. I hope we have two mages in this family!” Rhea grinned.
“You’re joking, right? The tutoring fees alone will bankrupt us.” Keira rubbed the bridge of her nose.
“Hey! Silas will be a warrior. He doesn’t resemble you nerds.” Lochras snapped out of his zombie-like state the moment they began talking about Silas’ future career.
“Before we start, I must note that, since Silas isn’t awakened, the tablet won’t tell you the strength of his affinity. It’ll just tell you whether he has one or not, and if his affinity is prominent, it will also tell you what element the affinity is toward.” The woman explained, making Keira roll her eyes since there was no need for the woman to explain it to them since they had made it clear they had done this before.
Keira walked Silas closer to the tablet, and once it was in front of him, Silas didn’t really see a way out of the situation and complied.
He had practice in controlling mana, but the tablet was different.
Every magic crystal had something to do with one of the elements, and from what he saw by using mystic eyes, he knew that the affinity was measured by how much of an element one absorbed into their body.
People with affinities naturally absorb an elemental energy into their bodies. While it may not be as fast as cultivation, this natural absorption tells people how strong their affinity is and, therefore, how easy it is to create spells or to cultivate.
Of course, Silas was certain that he could have easily gotten a high rank for all his affinities, but he wanted to make sure to limit himself to only a few at a time since any more would essentially lead him to his death.
However, the problem was that, while Silas knew how to break down the mana inside his body, or to even change the attribute of his mana to a certain element, he still had no idea how to separate the elemental energies outside of his body in order to cultivate.
If he tried to take in only one or two elements at a time, he was worried he’d accidentally devour all the elements, so he went with the safest option and simply repelled the mana, making it unable to enter his body.
“Oh… That’s weird. Usually, people have at least a little bit of resonance with one of the elements at your age, but the crystals aren’t even reacting.” The woman tilted her head in confusion.
They continued to try making it work several more times, yet every time they tried it, the tablet didn’t budge, not even reacting a little to Silas’ presence.
After a few more minutes of trying, they eventually gave up.
“Look! My boy is a warrior inside and out! He’s so much of a warrior that he rejected all forms of energy that aren’t toki!” Lochras laughed, making the other two frown at him with disapproving expressions.
And just like that, three years passed in what felt like the blink of an eye.
However, instead of being in the adventurer’s guild building, a four-and-a-half-year-old Silas stood before his father with a wooden sword that he thoroughly examined.
His father also seemed to be holding a wooden sword, yet unlike his usual relaxed expression, Lochras was now looking at Silas with a dead-serious one that even Silas was struggling to see through.
“Son, there is a pretty big chance that you won’t have the luxury to learn magic, so listen close and listen well. From today on out, I will be teaching you the art of close quarters combat. Is that understood?” Lochras asked, his toki flaring and sending a powerful gust of wind in every direction.
———————
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